Announcer: Whenever the laws of any state are broken, a duly authorized organization swings into action. It may be called the State Police, State Troopers, Militia, the Rangers… or the Highway Patrol. These are the stories of the men whose training, skill and courage have enforced and preserved our state laws.
On June 9th, the Justice Department selected General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin to build a massive $10 billion Integrated Wireless Network which will use interoperable Project 25 VHF radios linked on a nationwide, IP backbone.
IWN, jointly managed by the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury, will support more than 80,000 agents and officers responsible for law enforcement, protective services, homeland defense and disaster response missions.
The two winners bested Motorola and Raytheon for the contract which could amount to $3 billion to $30 billion over the life of the contract, which could stretch longer than 10 years.
The two companies got an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract. Want to download photos or video clips? Furgetaboutit. IWN uses 700/800 MHz narrowband radio systems — they only deliver about 10-20Kbps.
Experts painted a bleak picture of progress toward communications interoperability since Hurricane Katrina at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers conference this month. First responders say “grades” could help interoperability.
Is this a good deal for U.S. citizens? Could emergency personal get better service with Mobile WiMAX? Is this a job for the GAO?
Motorola and Raytheon, no doubt, are on the case.
Interoperability, like politics, is local. Take for example the Portland Rose Festival, held in my home town each June. They had the usual contingent of ships from the Coast Guard, Navy and Canada tied up at the Willamette River for tours last week.
I counted 4 Sheriff’s offices from different counties (with jurisdiction over the river), the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Auxillary (civilian volunteers), Portland Police (who have jurisdiction on the land), as well as Portland Fire and Rescue, State Police, federal officials and probably others.
The dispatching entity for the Portland Police Bureau uses Motorola Type II SmartZone gear which serves 4 counties. Cops can access mug shots and criminal records from their patrol cars using SEAGULL’s WinJa software.
Portland and Multnomah County together spend over $360 million per year on public safety.
They were all trying to talk to each other.
Then I noticed an emergency communications van from Army Corps of Engineers tied up by the dock. I chatted briefly with the guy in charge as they were packing up this morning (but have forgotten his name).
He told me that they had just returned to Portland after a long mission in Louisiana for Katrina communications with the Corps.
Their Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV) is one of six vehicles, operated by the Army Corps, with others stationed in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, St. Louis, and Nashville districts. A variety of different agencies brought in their own 800 MHz radios and shared the space.
The custom-built 36-foot-long vehicle can accommodate a staff of seven or more people. Its equipment includes laptop computers, office software, global GPS, digital cameras, phone and intercom system, satellite communications, cellular phone, radios (HF, VHF, and CB), drafting and mapping software, and wireless capability to network laptops within 200 feet of the RRV. They brought in a satellite dish but the satellite line of sight was blocked by trees so it was not used.
The vehicle is completely self-contained with a bathroom, microwave oven, coffeepot, refrigerator, water tank, and a 15-kilowatt generator. The Portland Police has a similar million dollar emergency communications van as do county and state police agencies, of course.
The County Sheriff has jurisdiction over the water. City Charter gives the fire bureau the lead role on search-and-rescue operations. Portland police take over in many cases when a possible crime hits land. Larger issues — environmental impacts of a boat explosion, for example — fall to the Coast Guard, also required by federal law to respond to all search-and-rescue calls.
As the Portland Tribune explains:
“When you get an emergency call, it’s very unclear sometimes what kind of call it is,” said Mark Maunder, a Gresham Fire Department battalion chief. “Is it someone who jumped, someone who was thrown in, someone who drowned — and then, how long have they been there?”
Who responds first and what action they take can have deep consequences. Each agency is on the same type of radio system, but not the same frequency, so there is little coordinating of efforts until multiple agencies have responded to a call.
But if it’s interoperable broadband communications you want, you can get it free in Portland. Personal Telco has a free hotspot at Oak Tree Digital, located next to Waterfront Park.
VeriLAN has complete coverage along the entire length of Waterfront Park, using THREE Vivato panels. After loosing out to MetroFi for the Portland Franchise, founder Steven Schroedl invited me up to his rooftop location directly across from the ships and showed me how his 3 Vivato panels cover an entire 360 degree arc, surrounding his location. They’ve also got pre-WiMAX and WiFi mounted on a television mast (above).
Whether MetroFi’s Portland cloud will be ready this time next year is still not entirely clear. But million dollar communications vans or KGW’s new satellite truck (above), might soon get some stiff competition.
After all, anyone with a laptop and a WiFi card can go live with telephony, audio or video right now. With no interoperability problems. Upstream speed has been a limitation. Soon, however, Mobile WiMAX and MPEG-4 AVC encoders could bring live, broadcast-quality television (in standard definition) to homes or broadcast studios using 1-2 Mbps uplinks. You don’t have to be Walt Disney to go live. You don’t have to spend $10 billion dollars. Everyone’s the media now.
Mobile WiMAX? I can’t wait!
Related DailyWireless articles include; Oregon’s Statewide Wireless Net, Hurricane/Tsuanmi Satellite Access, The $500M SafetyNet, Joint Commecial/Muni Proposed for 700Mhz and WiFi Routers for Cars.
[...] Is that a package or what? Maybe consumer lobbyists ought to team up with industry lobbyists to hatch a plan. Free, state-wide, broadband access — NOW! [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » State-wide Wireless Broadband Access on January 6th, 2007